BILL'S FARM

A brief respite in the rain allowed us all to be guided over Biopark Organic farm and experience Bill's enthusiasm to make this an organic farm to be proud of.

So much has been done in 3 or so years, to turn this from an overgrown piece of wasteland to a beautiful, organic fruit orchard and vegatable farm with plans to introduce beef cattle soon.

There are woodlots as well as plantings to regenerate native bushland and, literally, heaps and heaps of compost being made from everything available.

Water management is important and Bill is trying to both reduce the speed of run-off to allow soakage as well as using some special tractor attachment to penetrate the ground, without turning over the soil, also to increase the amount of water able to soak into the soil.

There are trial areas where Bill experiments with vegetable varieties (and enjoys eating the findings). The most amazing discovery for all of us was the strawberry patch which, in June at Mt Barker was still producing so many gorgeous strawberries we couldn't eat them all - despite our best efforts ! Sea Spray was the variety but Bill says it is only available by the 1000. Maybe one day !

Back at Bill's house we outdid ourselves with the delicious afternoon tea and Bill makes a great, strong coffee. It was hard to stop asking Bill questions and get off home. I hope we will be invited back again to see the progress....... and have a few more of those strawberries!

Thanks Bill.